Color Techniques for Drawing

Lesson 17 of 17

Paper Crafts with Your Drawings

Color Techniques for Drawing

Lesson 17 of 17

Paper Crafts with Your Drawings

Lesson Info

Paper Crafts with Your Drawings

I like to make notebooks. This is called a, this is called a pamphlet stitch. And that means you just take a stack of papers and stitch it together with one string. So I like to, I made these notebooks out of some of my old artwork. And the special thing about it is you can put any paper you want in there. So I put all different colors of paper. So if I wanted to do, you know, value studies or some of my chalkboard drawings I could do that. So I'm gonna show you how to make those. Start out with a piece of scrap paper. This again, is poster board. A lot of times I will just use, like if I have printer paper, there's usually a nice extra piece of stiff paper in there, I'll use that. So, you saw this on the T-shirt, this was a drawing I did. I scanned this in and I printed it out because I don't really want to put my original drawing on the front. I could but this is just kind of a little scrap notebook. You could put any kind of paper you want in it. So I have a big stack of paper. I ha...

ve just something I pulled out of a sketch book, I have some tracing paper, bunch of kind of vintage paper, grays, just stack them all up like that. Let's get the cover going first so it can be drying. So, I kind of eyeball it. I hold it up to the light, with the light behind it you can kind of see where it goes. Straighten it out and I know I'm gonna have a binding on it so I wanna have it mostly to one edge. And then I'm just going to draw around that so I know where to cut it.
Cleo, your drawing that you scanned in and printed out, did you print it out on any specific type of paper?
This is called brochure paper I think. So it's just little bit thicker and it probably has a little bit of a coating on it.
Okay, is it little bit more maybe like a card stock that we could find at an office supply store?
Yeah you could use card stock, I think this one is not even that heavy.
Great.
And then, I'm going to cut this out using a knife. Now, I know earlier in class, I was talking about how when you think you want to start a project, don't go shopping. Just work with what you have and get started. The exception to that is if you're about to cut a piece of your art with a very dull knife blade, go shopping (laughing). So this is a new knife blade. Just cutting it out on the lines. You could probably do this with scissors if you wanted since you've already drawn your lines you could probably cut close enough.
But I think that use the materials you have philosophy is perfect for this project because you're using all sorts of paper for the interior. It sounds like perhaps left over graph paper, computer paper, anything that might be used for sketching.
Yeah, and it also makes it more interesting to draw on too. So as you can see, I've kind of off centered this a little bit because I know I wanna use a piece of this tape and do a binding. Okay, then just glue all over. Now, when I glue I'm gonna put a piece of scrap paper behind it and I'm gonna kind of work from the center out and I'm gonna make sure I get all the edges. And now, I've kind of come to the point where my fingers are gettin' over into a little corner, I usually use sort of the backs of my fingers, so just the tips of my fingers, fingernails the backs of my fingernails are touching in the glue area that way I don't end up with glue everywhere. That's kind of easy to wipe off. Okay remove your scrap paper. And then, carefully place that on the front. Now, you can press this under a book. Let this dry a little bit. Actually, I think I'm gonna add my binding first. So this is gaffers tape. You could use duct tape, it's very similar. This just has a little bit more of a canvas quality and the stickiness is a little different and I just, I think it looks a little bit more artistic when it's a matte finish like this and I has more of a canvas quality. So I know that half of this is about that wide. And I wanna get it on straight, so I'm gonna draw a little line here to follow. Okay, that looks pretty straight. And then, just follow your line. And if you want, you can tuck in the edges there. Now on the back and tuck in the edges a little bit. Now you can see I'm not opening this all the way up all the way 'cause I want my notebook to stay flat. Book binding is a really big field and it is, there's just so many possibilities and it's really fun. You can get really into like archival papered, hand made cotton, leather bound, stitch things and they're just all super beautiful. But for our class, our theme is just use what you have and get something out there get yourself excited about it so you'll want to keep going. So we're not worried about that, you know, this tape, this poster board, all of these yes in 10 years are probably gonna get a little bit funky but for now, I like how it looks. (chuckling) And I'm gonna use it up pretty soon too. So, okay so we've got our cover, we're gonna you know, let that dry for a little bit. Here's our stack of papers. Now notice they're all totally different sizes. You want to fold them all in half. This is a bone folder, you don't have to have this. You can use the back of your finger nail. Anything that's not gonna make a mark. Sometimes I'll use like the end of a pen or something but if it is black, it's likely to make a mark on your paper. So, I love this fun folder just for this purpose. Fold everything in half. I would say you could maybe do a couple of sheets at a time but you don't wanna do the whole stack at once. And the bone folder just presses along like that. I have some craft paper, the kind you just have on your tables, some tracing paper. Still all different sizes. Get all of those folded in half. It's okay if they're all different sizes. Then stack 'em all up in the order that you want 'em. This is just gonna be a single signature. That means we just have one stack. Signatures are if I was gonna have maybe three different stacks, all sewn together in one binding. And, since this book is so easy to bind it's also very easy to take apart. So, if I make a mistake on one of my pictures I can just cut the string and take that piece out and restring it. That's what I love about this so much. Okay so we are doing a pamphlet stitch that requires three holes. So I'm gonna take my all and I'm gonna mark off three holes, one, two, three. I'm just gonna go right through the whole stack. You could do your cover separately if you want, if you're cover is thicker, my cover is not too thick. So I'm going right through, don't poke your finger out of the back with this, it's really really sharp. I'm going, first I'm going into my mat and then once I know where my pen is and I've got everything stacked up, then I go all the way through. Things are slippin'. They'll poke right in and all the way through. Okay, now this is when we use that wax linen thread again. And, let's see, I'm gonna go one, two, and a third just for good luck. Cut that off and let's see. I have one already threaded 'cause it is a little bit hard to get in this. And this is a tapestry needle. Just any kind of a big needle with an eye big enough to fit through that wax linen thread. Something I should run. So, we're makin' a pretzel. We start at the center back and go through the back one. And it might take a little bit of wiggling to get through all those holes. If you want you could clamp all this together with you know, put two clips here and two clips here, okay. Leave a little bit of that sticking out. Now, go over to one side, so I came through the back, up to the middle, back down. Now I'm out of the spine again and how you remember this is the spine has, is the side that has just one big long piece all the way across the back. You could flip that if you want but that's how you remember the order to sewing. One is gonna have one big long piece all the way across it and I do usually like it as the spine. And back through this last hole. Okay, and to end up the pretzel, we go through the middle again. Okay, so now when you come out the end here you have two ends coming out the center hole and you have one long piece. Tighten everything up a little bit. I usually cut my needle off at this point. And make sure that that long piece is in the middle of these two pieces that are coming through the same hole otherwise, you're knot might slip back through that hole. So, he we go, square knot, right over left, left over right, okay, trim those off. Kind of almost looks like a book but it's a little floppy. We've got a bunch of pages hanging out the side. So, take your ruler and you're gonna trim all this loose stuff. Hold this down real tight on the edge of your cover and get your knife ready and don't try and cut through all of it at once in one big heavy cut. Just lightly skim across all of it and just keep going until you've got through all of that. If something like this happens and it starts to crumple up that means your blade is getting dull. So, I'm just gonna change that right away because we don't deal with dull blades. (chuckling) This is your artwork and you spent a long time getting to this point, you don't wanna tear it. These things just pop off, like that. The next one comes out. I usually wrap this in something before I throw it away just in case you stick your hand in the trash can. Okay, two more edges. Okay, got through all those layers. Last edge and kind of satisfying getting through all these layers. There you go, nice and cleaned up. And you have this really fun little notebook that has all these different kinds of paper in it. You got to choose which paper you want. You made it so if you want you can always just cut this string, take something out, reorganize it, put something in, and just tie it back up again.

Class Description

Are you ready to work with color on your drawing but overwhelmed by all the possible options? In this class, professional painter & illustrator Cleo Papanikolas shares fun, beginner-friendly color application techniques that can turn anyone’s drawings into vibrant finished pieces.

In this class Cleo will teach you 8 different color styles ranging from spot color techniques to using metallics with illustrations.

You'll also learn how to:

Load and Apply color with your brush

Use different mediums: watercolor, gouache, brush pens and colored pencil

Create harmonious color palettes

With your finished color pieces, Cleo will show you how to move your drawings out of your sketchbook and out into the world. Learn how to display your drawings on gallery walls and onto physical products, from iPhone cases to large scale tapestries, with sites like Society6.

user 43495d

Cleo does start quite nervous, and not very clear in her explanations. Thanks to the guy asking the questions throughout the class…I guess he was as confused as us in the beginning. BUT…the class does get better!! She gets more confident and does give good examples to take your simple drawing to a colorful piece of art you can sell on products or share on social media. I really enjoyed later lessons. And I always say-if I can get a least ONE good advice or trick – then it was not a waste of my $20.